THE HIDDEN HEALTH COST OF THE ECO-NIMBY COMPLEX

For insight into why both unemployment and prices for just about everything are so high in California, consider the saga of the Oceanside trash hauler that wants to cut costs while dramatically reducing air pollution.

The local division of Waste Management, a national trash hauler, wants to buy 42 new garbage trucks that burn natural gas instead of diesel fuel. This is a good idea on every conceivable level.

Natural gas engines burn so cleanly that replacing 42 diesel trucks is the air-pollution equivalent to removing 3,100 cars from local roads. They also emit much less carbon dioxide, the subject of pending limits designed to reduce global warming. Experts say that switching to natural gas is particularly important for garbage trucks and city buses, because they travel thousands of miles on stop-and-go routes close to homes and pedestrians.

At this moment in global energy history, natural gas also offers remarkable cost savings. Although the trucks are more expensive, natural gas prices have plummeted thanks to the nationwide “fracking” revolution in drilling technology that has caused an epic boom in U.S. supplies.

With diesel routinely above $4 a gallon, the equivalent amount of compressed natural gas costs $2 or less. The savings potential has prompted officials at railroads, trucking firms and other major transporters to study or begin converting their fleets.

Not incidentally, the Navy and Marines are converting rapidly to natural gas to become less dependent on insecure foreign oil suppliers, some of which fund terrorists.

Let’s pause to review: Upgrading Oceanside’s garbage fleet is vastly better for human health, costs less and bolsters national security. What could possibly go wrong?

To fuel its new trucks, Waste Management sought – and received – city permission to install equipment at its 3.7-acre diesel refueling center in an Oceanside Boulevard industrial park. That triggered an appeal under the California Environmental Quality Act by one Nadine Scott, who lives nearby.

With help from law students at the USD Environmental Law Clinic, Scott articulated a long list of alleged “environmental” violations, ranging from noise to flooding risk to the recent demise of an oleander hedge on the company’s property.

City officials and company lawyers rebutted the entire list: The project was reviewed by state and federal regulators. The new trucks are much quieter, not louder. The oleanders, which are not native and battling a plant disease, are being replaced by eco-friendly native plants. A company-paid biologist will ensure that no birds are mating at planting time.

If it seems incredible that adding pumps and natural gas tanks to an established industrial site requires this kind of high-cost bureaucracy, welcome to doing business in California.

Oceanside’s City Council wisely rejected Scott’s appeal. But under CEQA, her student lawyers could just be warming up, and the protests of a single neighbor could stymie the improvement of an entire region.